


Photograph

by CommanderInChief



Category: Holby City
Genre: (sorry), F/F, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-20
Updated: 2016-04-20
Packaged: 2018-06-03 11:58:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6609853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CommanderInChief/pseuds/CommanderInChief
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Photography is the story I fail to put into words" - Destin Sparks</p>
            </blockquote>





	Photograph

**Author's Note:**

  * For [RightHandWoman](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RightHandWoman/gifts).



> Originally based on the prompt 'spring cleaning' from Righthandwoman. This is what happens when I try to write fluff.

Mop in hand, Bernie poked her head around the door, doing her best not to choke on the thick smog of chemical cleaner settling itself at the bottom of her lungs. “I thought I asked you to polish the cabinets - not soak them,” 

 

Her son didn’t respond. She was halfway to asking what the matter was when he surfaced from behind the sofa. It took her a second to notice that he was retrieving something. A piece of paper. Even from the other side of the room, she could see that it was greyed with dust and shiny in one corner from the sweet wrapper still half-clinging to a mound of lead-grey fluff. Yet, by the way that Cameron held it by his fingertips, carefully easing flat the shrivelled corners, it could’ve been a baby bird with a broken wing. 

 

Bernie blinked, her eyebrows drawing themselves closer together like a set of magnets. “What is it?”

 

Finding herself faced with the silent treatment for the second time that morning, she rolled her eyes before setting down the mop and seeing for herself. 

 

It was a photograph. Not the kind that Dom took seventy of a day only to leave them to rot away at the back of his IPhone. It was a proper, old fashioned photograph taken on a camera that probably cost more her month's wages and still took forever to get developed. 

 

Bernie had never  _ really  _ understood Alex’s need to spend that kind of money on something she couldn’t drive but, holding a piece of them, naive and stupid and  _ in love _ , it was worth every godforsaken thing she owned. 

 

If it hadn’t been for her son, Bernie doubted that she would’ve been able to clutch back the sob searing at the bottom of her throat. 

 

_ She’d given it all away. _

 

“Mum?” He uncurled one of her fists, holding it tight between his. They were smaller than he remembered. “You’re shaking,” 

 

In all his life, Cameron still didn’t think that he could remember ever seeing his mother afraid. Worried, yes, when she’d caught him playing too close to the road or trying to toast crackers or staying out all night without answering his phone. But the look in her eyes as they glazed over - that was something he’d never seen before. 

 

“This is her, isn’t it?

 

I found the letters when I was sorting out your day bag when you were still in hospital. Didn’t take a genius to put two and two together,”

 

Her eyes met his and, for a few seconds, neither of them said a word.

 

“She must’ve been quite something,” 

  
Bernie made no attempt to disguise her voice when it crumbled “Yeah - I think she was,” 


End file.
